U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert said Congress and President Barack Obama must join forces to address challenges as the president embarks on a second term.

Reichert represents Issaquah and the 8th Congressional District in the House of Representatives. The former King County sheriff and Auburn Republican attended the inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol on Monday.

“Our country is facing great challenges and we must work together to provide opportunities and prosperity for all Americans,” Reichert said in a statement. “We must find common ground to move our country forward, stop the political posturing and do what is right for the American people.”

Strong get-out-the vote operation boosts candidates

Democrats dominated Issaquah in the November election.

City voters chose Democrats for every federal and statewide office on the ballot — sometimes by a broad margin and others by a handful of votes.

Issaquah overwhelmingly supported Democrats in the races for president and vice president, U.S. senator and U.S. representative, and every statewide office. Only incumbent Republican Steve Litzow, a 41st Legislative District state senator representing about half of Issaquah, earned support from a majority of voters inside city limits.

Washington’s Electoral College members plan to cast votes Dec. 17 for President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

Each state is afforded the same number of electors equal to the number of senators and representatives a state has in Congress. Washington possesses 12 electoral votes, one for each congressional district and another two for each senator. Democrats chose the electors from the state’s 10 congressional districts at caucuses in May, and chose the at-large electors at the state Democratic Party convention in June.

The group plans to gather in Olympia to cast votes for Obama and Biden. The incumbents received 56.16 percent of votes in Washington. Republican Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan pulled in 41.29 percent statewide.

The 2012 elections seemed to have sparked a political interest in the students at Issaquah High School.

You would think that the presidential election is not a topic that most teenagers typically discuss, due to a lack of being able to participate in the voting. Yet a number of students at Issaquah High understand that they should be educated enough in the world of politics so that the next time the elections come around, they will be able to make the right decision.

To encourage that, Issaquah held a mock election, where underage students were able to get a feel for what voting is like in the real world. The closer Issaquah High students get to a legal voting age, the more involved and interested they seem to be in such topics.

King County matched the record for voter turnout in a presidential election, and achieved other milestones in the Nov. 6 contest, officials announced late Tuesday after certifying the results.

Countywide, voters returned 993,908 ballots for about 84 percent turnout, a similar figure to the record turnout set during the 2008 presidential election, although the elections office received more ballots in 2012.

The county set records for registered voters — 1,170,638 — and for the number of ballots tallied on election night — about 556,000.

“Voters responded to our messaging this year and returned their ballots early,” Elections Director Sherril Huff said in a statement. “We counted a record high of 556,000 ballots on election night and the number of ballots received too late to process was down 76 percent.”

Students statewide and in the Issaquah School District chose the same candidates as grown-up voters — Barack Obama for president and Jay Inslee for governor.

The exercise included 38,848 students statewide, including classes at Cascade Ridge Elementary, Endeavour Elementary, Sunset Elementary, Pine Lake Middle and Issaquah High schools in the Issaquah School District.

The number of students participating statewide shattered the record for participation — about 18,000 students — set in 2008.

With the recent election, some Issaquah High School students in Junior Statesmen of America were able to get involved in politics even if they were unable to vote themselves.

JSA is a political debate and discussion-based organization that has clubs across the United States. The clubs debate on a range of topics relevant to current events.

“At our weekly meetings, we try and change the debate topics a lot to make things interesting instead of a boring restating of facts we discussed at the last meeting,” junior Natalie Andreeva, a member of JSA, said.